


Albatross's Verdict

by Ravens_Unraveling



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study-ish, Feitan acts like a weird ball of why, Feitan gets feels, I Tried, I hope I'm tagging right..., Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Spoilers for more recent manga chapters, Mildly disturbing descriptions of violence, Psychological Elements, Sweet Jesus what did I write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 20:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16817965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravens_Unraveling/pseuds/Ravens_Unraveling
Summary: The end is a funny thing to someone like Feitan, who couldn't care if death came calling. He wanders now, and searches, hoping maybe their leader didn't face the fate the others did when Hisoka chose to hunt them.





	Albatross's Verdict

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this happened. I don't know what I'm doing anymore xD.  
> I hope you enjoy this very...odd one-shot.

Was life too hard that they gave in to death?

Feitan gravitated silently to a distant village. The plains had expired to umber stained stalks turned hosts, pinpointed all gravestones of villagers slumbering six feet below. Feitan knew little about what claimed their lives only they'd rot in deadened gray light. Air crisped, tanged the tongue with sparks. The Troupe's heist could've cut them, maimed, hostility polymerized, became unstable and destroyed, the nuclear fission to no water.

If the Troupe searched all together for the Boss, hungry spiders craving, would they be fairing well?

A thought pricked him, of Hisoka in front, arousal and malice painted over white plaster features, satisfied he procured a beautiful mess. Feitan could end him. With every interrogation sadism rewarded screams, results like timed lullabies on repeat. The torture saved for Hisoka could be lovely too. Tendons separated like taffy, Feitan could shear every line from Hisoka's leg, botch his operation, malpractice'd so he'd resemble the fallen: butchered left eye like Shizuku, right arm severed like Machi, left leg crooked like Nobunaga, back split and spine fractured like Franklin. Then Hisoka would die. Like all of them.

Feitan had come to their meeting spot alone several months ago. The Spiders didn't pair up. The reason came as a note nailed to an oak with an Ace of Hearts bleeding from the lowest corner.

Obligations understated the reality of every leg as a whole, undivided, because the body can't survive without limbs. When each loss was ripped out of Chrollo's life, the spider's lives amounted more. The head should never shed tears, it was meant to lead. Feitan so badly wanted Hisoka to stick around.  
The fun the jester would think he'd have. The fun the Troupe's torturer would really have.

Since he found the note, he'd heard nothing. Not even from their beloved boss. Feitan never gave to the hunch, that maybe, Hisoka got him too. Feverish, Feitan searched. Ate when possible, killed as necessary. When Chrollo was located, in his furred jacket and reading absent mindedly, maybe he could go wild.

Familiarity comforted than informed. Feitan reacted best with violence and a smile. Mocked mortality to forget his own. To feel inhuman, or less like most of his life went missing. Living was the hard part.

Feitan crossed the village's threshold. Wind tunneled through broken windows and whistled out amongst carcasses of houses and shops. Everywhere they smoldered black, simpered from abandonment.

His eyes narrowed. The windup cries receded behind, cooler the more he ventured and leaf spines cracked underfoot. The few standing Plymouth huts were smothered in yellowed flyers. As Feitan passed, one said festival. Banquet. Celebration for the afterlife. So haunted by the past are we?

The village emptied into a clearing mounted by a hill, healthy grass sifted with each step while he headed to the top. Driven in the middle was an elm, dead trees held on with thin fingers, absorbed life out of the sky -- this one was no different. Feitan peered past the trunk.

There, reading like always, Chrollo paid no attention.

•••

Feitan veered in front of him. "Boss." So natural to say, admirable, like an arm found and stitched back to your body.

Chrollo rose his head, shock, then merged to pleasant surprise. "You're alive? I have to say I'm shocked." He closed the book, cover thumped vanilla pages, Feitan reminded he hadn't died and hallucinated a better ending.

"Yes. I was looking for you. It bad?" He said.

"No." Chrollo said. "What had taken you so long?"

"You hard to find when not wanting to be found."

He chuckled. "Yes. That's true." Chrollo gestured with his chin.

Feitan sat next to him. A limb obeying the head embodied purpose. "I was also looking for any survivors."

"Who else is alive?" In reality it's calm inquiry. Symbolically, hopeful.

Feitan filled the role of bad news, "No one else. We're most likely the only ones."

It disappointed -- air corrupted to dingy gray. Too green grass -- it mocks too. Why not exchange them for the other eleven limbs?

Chrollo interrupted the discomfort, recounted his aimless survival. Moved, ate when necessary, searched when possible. News spread to the head quick after all, and wandered instead of lead. Instead of plotting, order reversed. How long had the Boss lived like this?

Feitan heard an albatross for several months, verdict breached the troposphere and below -- all would die, cracked a dry avian throat. He loathed it.

Still he finished, "I still looked, and for Hisoka."

"Will you restore the members?" Feitan asked.

Chrollo said nothing only toppled the book to it's exposed side. Then, "I'd rather kill Hisoka first."

"Hunt him?"

"No, I'll wait."

"How do you know if he will come?"

"He will. Hisoka would never pass an opportunity to fight someone he sees as strong." Finality.

Feitan didn't need fortunes, incomprehensible signs inked by dead civilization, incorporeal jigsaw pieces to filch answers from. His tone, so unshakable, the voice that murders and smiles, held edge. Feitan said what came to mind. "Why?"

Chrollo's face rippled then stilled. "It's hard to move without any legs Feitan."

Several, lonely months bothered a man. Lonely months summed up at once wounded a mind. Feitan's face screwed up, unraveled turmoil, one he pretended fueled malice and sadism. Then it smoothed out. "You have one."

Chrollo's gaze poked him, and Feitan tried to not wriggle under it. He can't let the silence betray, betray what's locked up in his ribcaged heart, can't handle it. Not right now. "Remember?" Feitan said.

This gets his attention. "Hmm?"

"The job here." Feitan ventured a peek.

His soft mouth is succinct with calm, arresting Feitan's eyes. He'd stare at Chrollo forever and never mouth him beautiful out loud. The rawness murder brought out too, touched soul deep with tainted fingers, to drag lines over Chrollo's pale, exposed throat and browned-gray eyes. Feitan could stare alright but self-control would fail.

Chrollo then chuckled. "Yes. It was a small one."

Feitan blinked. Past operation, that's right. Small in scale: a solid diamond, jewel'd statue hauled from a quary, left in a citizen's house, under a summer sun cooked thatched rooftop, jagged lines of yellow chipped at priceless exterior. There had been quiet celebration -- a comment from Shalnark and agreeable grunts here and there.

Feitan commented how much changed, withheld so much and it bellowed between them. Chrollo acquiesced.

Simple mannerisms as elicited over tea, no capacity for stress over mundane or serious pervaded. The composure of his mastermind; charismatic, Chrollo formed forces others feared, remembered. Because they evolved from an idea.

Feitan redirected his attention. Little of him is tameable, parts willed from reaching the open. Maybe he lost sight of himself and Chrollo refocused him. Maybe Feitan appreciated a foothold and grounding within the Phantom Troupe. All day Feitan could clearly recite the reasons his mind turned to attraction. Better unspoken than unreciprocated. Honeysuckle'd speeches, pagoda underneath, tasted fine from the object of affection's tongue, wetted with resolve he respected. Feitan was of many fallen, sanded down. He never reformed the same. How devotion rhymed with greed.

"We're the only ones that remember. I wonder what Shalnark would have to say." Chrollo mused. It's half finished as a thought.

Feitan resisted a bitter remark. "Yes." He said. Sometimes it was hard around him. Feitan wasn't one to say the right thing, only wonder when he'd torture someone, other cases -- kill.  
"But it's our problem." Feitan said.

Chrollo stared unconvinced. "Is it?"

"I'm still a leg. It was hammered to protect others by you, Boss." He said. A breeze fiddled his high collar.

Chrollo turned his frustration, fragile and thin, at the trampled grass. "It's not your fault. I should've ordered them to stay together--"

"Boss." Feitan growled and his eyes narrowed. "The more you complain, the more Hisoka win. The more the others roll in graves. It not you fault, it's our problem."

Chrollo muttered, a pillowy sentence. Stress tightened his eyes. Figures he couldn't let go.

He'd argued enough before. Neck crick released, Feitan examined the skeletal canopy. Branches had vanished except two large arms thrusted to skyline. Eleven were missing.

A chuckle brought him back, Chrollo had seen them. "It really is like limbs have been ripped from me." Sinewy control gone, and replaced with a tear.

Feitan stood, he taloned down his collar, cemented hands on broad shoulders, and yanked forward. Lips pressed on his. The warmth crowded and soothed Feitan's mind, grip loosened. The situation slapped him awake. Feitan jerked back. No. He didn't want to run but he kissed his own leader. Caved to desires. His eyes lingered on Chrollo's face.

The shock stuck, settled. Chrollo blinked, composed, then singled Feitan out. He stroked pale fingers toward him.

Feitan listened. Chrollo stole him back and kissed his curve of neck.

Feitan's surprise isn't finesse'd, pleasure coiled into his throat. He could stay like this until his life ended.

Chrollo enlivened the patch of nerves with a breezy breath and retracted. Feitan wanted the heat back, even if it seared.

He smiled. "From that expression you didn't expect that. How long did you think you could hide it from me?"

Feitan growled and stared at his boots. "Long enough."

"Fei," It should be illegal, his heart threatened further adoration from those words, "I care about your wellbeing."

"I don't need pity." His back tightened in defense.

"But what if I said I needed you?"

Feitan unfocused, then dryly chuckled. "Then not bad. Not bad because maybe it what I want."

Chrollo's smile widened a bit. Feitan could remember such a face and feel less alone.

•••

Lazy, white beacons staggered out one by one into the black sky. A ragged caw echoed over opaque wilderness. If it was an albatross, they should kill it and halve the corpse, hang it from their necks. They'd be equalized.

If the others were alive, would Feitan unified intimately with the Boss be theft? Defilement?

Feitan snorted. Maybe. The quietest breath touched his side, and he gazed at his boss. Maybe they were each other's albatross.

Feitan bowed and kissed his forehead. Everything on his boss was better reciprocated.


End file.
